Review: Why Is Nobody Laughing? by Yasmin Rahman

 

Why Is Nobody Laughing is a difficult novel to assess, since it holds the aspirations of two very different novels. Our teenage hero is Ibrahim, a second-generation Bengali in a small town with an unusual ambition: he wants to be a stand-up comedian. But Ibrahim is stricken with crippling panic attacks on and off the stage, and they’re getting worse.

The plot follows Ibrahim and his friend through a comedy tournament in the local community centre. The tournament acts as scaffolding for the important themes: anxiety, family, male friendship. Of these, family is best explored. Ibrahim is caught between the role of parent and child, dependent and carer, his parents speaking little English and interested in performing only the most rudimentary parental duties. It is a fascinating portrayal of an East-Asian family dynamic, and I wished to spend more time with them.

But a conflict lurks at the heart of Rahman’s book. The issues here are dark and weighty – dead parents, depression, car accidents – but the book doesn’t reflect on them deeply. Much of the novel is, more or less, a mental health guidebook. The advice is excellent but the art suffers. Likewise with the humour, which often elicited a smile but lacked irony or the dryness characteristic of the best British comedy. 

There is value for the younger reader here, but they may find the themes and bad language off-putting. The same themes will appeal to the older reader, but the lack of depth deters. Certainly, there are moments of great beauty – it just feels like there could’ve been many more.

Luke Power